With Nosferatu releasing in theaters soon, many people are wondering what the dreaded Count Orlok (played by Bill Skarsgård) will look like, since it has been kept a secret. In an interview with Fangoria, director Robert Eggers and actor William Dafoe shed some light on the subject.

Eggers stated that his goal is to make vampires scary again:

“In the cinematic vampires’ evolution from Max Schreck to Edward Cullen, we needed to make the vampire scary again. So I went back to the folklore when people actually believed in vampires, and these early Baltic folk vampires are closer to zombies in appearance. I had to ask myself, what does a dead Transylvanian nobleman look like? And that is what Bill looks like.”

This version of Nosferatu will be very interesting to watch because Eggers has stated that it has never been done this way before. “The other main difference is that there’s never been a version of this story that, from the very beginning, the whole film is seen through the eyes of the female protagonist. The Ellen character, played by Lily-Rose Depp.”

While Count Orlok’s appearance is still largely a mystery, this interview gives more context as to both the appearance of the monster and the underlying plot itself. It is very exciting to see what is in store.